Beneath The Milky Twilight, Kiss Me
by Maxwell Lily
Summary: He's so close when she turns her head to yell at him that she quickly faces her notebook again. The thing she truly can't understand above all, above math, above literature and history, is why he made her sway on that day he had asked for a kiss, and why she wouldn't stop swaying at the sight of his white teeth and honest, brief laughs. [Modern High School AU]
1. One

_My vision is a blur of colors passing me by; of sounds, of cars, of crying. There's a split second where everything escapes me — my surroundings, weight and breath. I'm in the air like something mythical, something magical, but gravity pulls me, a crushing reality in my ribs and elbows and head. I roll onto my back and with a glimpse of the sky, I think that the world is big enough to encompass all of my happiness and still small enough to steal my balance, to make me fall._

 _My vision is a blur of upside down colors, passing car lights, footsteps that walk far and away. Far and away._

 _You approach me uninvited, like you're really a fallen blossom brought down by complete chance, by the wind._

 _It's the first time in a long time that I can see with such clarity of details._

 _You're brighter than you have any right to be._

* * *

"Your friend is weird."

She doesn't look up when she says it, still absentmindedly drawing a flower on the corner of her notebook. The hands of the clock seem to stand still above the blackboard, a beginning that hadn't quite begun, chairs being scraped across the wooden floor. The morning is the color of faded summer in photographs.

"Why is that?"

The flower under her touch grows and grows in folded petals, the stem reaching across the top of her page, just like the blush coming from deep inside of her, up and up it goes, all the way to the tip of her ears.

"He asked if he could kiss me."

She does look up when her friend laughs obnoxiously loud, a laugh that draws the attention of every student in the classroom and scares away the birds in the trees outside the window. She kicks his chair and the action causes him to choke on air. A couple seconds later, he's hiccupping. It's a punishment hardly anyone deserves, she knows, but a fit of hiccups is hardly as curious as a goodhearted laugh, and soon all of the heads are already turning away from where she hid herself behind her own hair. Teenage attention is fickle and vain, she thinks thankfully to her flowers on her notebook.

"That doesn't sound like him," her friend says between hiccups and she looks at him without lifting her head.

"But he did ask."

Kim Baek Ah rests his hands on the back of his chair then his chin on top of them, blinking up at her; a comical pair of tall and short beauty regarding each other from different points of their usual view.

"At least he _asked._ "

She hits him on the head with the notebook and the attention it grants them is quickly dismissed by the sound of the bell. Homeroom starts and she collects herself in perfect posture and imperfect attention, his image tickling at the back of her mind with a kind smile and long eyelashes, his eyes low like Baek Ah's had been, head resting on arms, his black hair being softly blown aside like the first leaves in the autumn wind.

She opens her books as noisily as she can, fighting the memories away like a warrior with a dragon, and all of her efforts are missed by her classmates, each one of them with a battle of their own to fight. Mr. Choi speaks of stories like they've truly existed, prose and poetry coming alive out of his mouth. When he speaks, Hae Soo listens, enjoys, daydreams of the images he creates, and all other thoughts disappear. Later on, Baek Ah will ask her about underlying symbolism and meanings and she could tell him all of it because she saw it all. In Mr. Choi's classes, Hae Soo forgets all, every disappointment and sleepless night, every ripped letter, every—

 _Can I kiss you?_

She wishes she could jump inside the books and a thousand years into the past to escape that stupid boy.

* * *

He does pay attention. His eyes flicker through her notes and her books and he follows her directions, the tip of her mechanical pencil, and he seems to hang onto her every word and explanation. But whenever his eyes focus on her lips, she's self-conscious and she hates it. Baek Ah said he needed tutoring and she was happy to tutor, she's always glad to help, but now he makes her uncomfortable and she just wants to run away.

"Why?" He asks and she blinks back into reality, back into his dark and confused eyes. She looks down at their subject spread out across the park's table, and she can't seem to find his trail of thought in the natural disaster of her emotions. "I mean, why is she such a remarkable woman in this period if she posed as a man? Wouldn't it be braver to reveal herself as a woman from the start?"

Hae Soo's eyes light up. They had covered so many things that day, they had talked of art and history and literature, until they finally arrived at his assignment, at all the critical writing he had to write on a film. Soo's hands browse the books with ease to find all the pictures she wants to show him, her words running without brakes. She loves female artists and it shows with every exaggerated gesture, with every example she gives, brave women who changed history, books that would never be forgotten. Soo talks until her throat begs for water.

It is only then that she notices him at that particular moment. The way he had leaned sideways, eyes barely blinking, fully paying attention to her. She had barely noticed Wang So was good-looking on the day they met, the eternity of a month ago, but it had only become glaringly obvious after he had asked to kiss her. It's been a week. The whole time since then, she'd notice the particular way in which he'd smirk, the arch of his eyebrow when understood something, the way he'd chew on his straw when he was engrossed in reading, and mostly the way he looked at her like she was a never-ending source of amusement.

She tries not to throw water on his face and flee the scene.

"Baek Ah was right," he says, closing a few books and putting them away. "You really do make things clear and easy."

Soo pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She would have retorted if he didn't seem to be genuinely praising her, not even looking up at her to watch her reaction. He lays the math textbooks on the table and she groans.

"Must we?"

Wang So has a way of looking at her like he's unveiling his eyes, like he knows a deeper truth that makes him older and wiser, like he reflects the very sun in his irises. But when he leans forward and smirks at her, he's only a teenager, none the wiser, eager to make a fool out of her.

"I thought you had a mock exam next week."

He sits beside her so she can look as he lays out formulas with ease, so she can accompany his reasoning behind every problem and graphic, and he never once asks her to kiss him, not that day, just like every other day since he had first asked. She tries to consciously avoid touching him even though they're sitting close, but every once in a while, she leans a little closer to pay attention to his explanations, to point at something she didn't understand.

She closes her hands in anxiety as he looks over her shoulder at her resolution of a particularly complicated problem.

"Hae Soo, you do realize your numbers are still incredibly hard to read."

"Hey!"

He's so close when she turns her head to yell at him that she quickly faces her notebook again. The thing she truly can't understand above all, above math, above literature and history, is why he made her sway on that day he had asked for a kiss, and why she wouldn't stop swaying at the sight of his white teeth and honest, brief laughs. The question twists inside of her like a knife.

At the end of that afternoon, crushing leaves under her feet on the way home, Hae Soo thinks Wang So is much more of a mystery than trigonometry, and she has no formula to figure him out.


	2. Two

_If it were for my own sake, maybe I wouldn't have picked myself up. The cold ground littered with cherry blossoms and sunlight peeking through the flowers up high felt like a better bed than I had had for weeks. The dirt beneath my fingertips, the pain on my side, and the stares of passersby. If I had the power to freeze time, it would be at that moment before I realized how swift time really is, how it moves forward even when we want to go back. But I picked myself when I heard the crying, I threw everything I was aside, neglect and regret colliding inside of me. How could I have forgotten the things that really mattered?_

 _Our hands meet for the first time when we care for somebody other than ourselves._

* * *

"That doesn't sound like him," Baek Ah had said. But what did sound like him? Who was Wang So between what she had first seen and what he perceived himself to be?

Hae Soo met him early in the semester per Baek Ah's introduction. She needed some extra help with all things related to math and he needed a tutor for literature and language.

When she came upon him, he had his head on his books, yes, but his eyes were closed. Under the golden sun that was slowly graying for the upcoming season, on that park devoid of children, Soo approached him, stopped before him, cleared her throat. Wang So opened one eye and that was her greeting, no nod of acknowledgment, no polite bow. She sat across from him and started arranging her books meticulously on the table, her back straight and glasses in place, hands fidgeting against each other as the stranger kept staring at her, head barely lifted from his own pile of books.

" _What do you need help with?"_ Soo asked. A single hand reached somewhere on the bench beside him, and without even looking down, he picked up a literature book and dropped it on the table with a thump. Soo frowned, eyes blinking at the dust that reached behind her lenses. _"What don't you understand?"_

" _Nothing."_

Thus Hae Soo began her lessons, speaking of themes and meanings and language structure. When she found helpful quizzes in the books, she pushed them in his direction, but Wang So barely looked at them; his eyes were trained on her as if he were the most attentive student, but his back remained slouched and his mouth remained closed, no questions or arguments or participative thoughts.

Soo had studied in groups before, even helped some of her juniors in the past, her favorite subjects flowing out of her like melodies Baek Ah produced in the music hall. But on those days... On those days, Soo suspected Baek Ah had been looking after more than just her or So's education. On those days, talking was second in her desire to stay locked up in her room, re-reading old messages and avoiding them at the same time, dropping her phone only to pick it up seconds later.

She closed her book with defeat in her sigh, unsure if she had reached him at all, if she had been of any help. She put away all of the books she had picked for him, only to reluctantly lay the books she needed help with between them. Wang So rose then, stretching as if he had been doing nothing but nap the afternoon away. His hair needed combing, his uniform was wrinkled and his striped blue-and-white tie lied forgotten at the far end of the table, like he had thrown it that way the moment he had sit down — Soo suspected he really had.

" _What don't you understand?_ " Wang So asked, crossing his legs and arms, and Soo realized the pile of books he had been lying on were all the books they'd be going through for her tutoring. With an awkward laugh she said,

" _Nothing?"_

That earned her what she would learn was his trademark expression; an amused, lopsided smirk that could be jokingly friendly and incredibly condescending depending on the mood of their conversation. On that day, nervous with their first meeting, uncertain of her skills and wanting nothing more than to be alone, Soo wasn't sure how to read it. It was the first response he had given her ever since she had sit down in front of him.

Wang So's teaching style was more an invitation; _follow me_ , said his fingers as they moved swiftly across the notebook, numbers flowing forward like a river stream, the firm grip on his pencil carving marks on the sheet beneath the one he was writing on, like a code she would have to decipher. He handed his notes to her after the resolution of a problem but although it was beautiful like a well-structured poem, the subject remained a mystery to her.

No progress was being made from studying face to face. Wang So took no time in switching seats to sit beside her. With their height difference, Soo might as well have lied her head on his shoulder to read over his writing like she sometimes did with Baek Ah when he was drawing, but So was a stranger and neither seemed really willing to be in each other's presence. So she craned her neck to pay attention to his formulas and he leaned away from her to give her space to read the numbers that slowed down to a pace she could follow.

He didn't really say much on that first day. Soo read his numbers until they all bled together with the glare of the sun in her eyes, so she shook her head and called it quits. Wang So, still in the middle of a formula, blinked up at her like a child told it was time to put away his toys for the day. With a polite bow, Hae Soo walked home thinking it could have been a bad idea, after all.

She kept going because Baek Ah insisted they both needed all the help they could get, as if he, himself, didn't need extra tutoring. Baek Ah, however, could afford it in specialized schools; she couldn't. And so she kept meeting him in that park, by that table that was barely sheltered by a tall, sepia-tinted tree.

Soo didn't count the days because she was barely paying attention, but in what must have been a matter of weeks, Wang So was greeting her with a polite smile. He took notes; filled the margins of his books with annotations of Hae Soo, descriptions of authors and characters that she came up with herself, an amalgamation of all that she read and all that she loved. And he spoke to her, the low timber of his voice filling her ears from up-close, and those graphics she used to be afraid of made a little bit more sense.

A little bit more.

When she was writing, Soo's eyes tended to glaze over, and a handwriting that had once been deliberate and beautiful had morphed into a slanted, carried away version of herself. She tried to ground herself to Wang So's voice, to his words and numbers, but the last characters she wrote down always carried over to the edge of the paper, a thought that didn't know how to end.

She began to catch Wang So's eyes very close to her, waking her up from her reveries, capturing her from the clouds that insisted on settling on her. The smirk told her that he knew, and she almost believed that he _truly_ knew where her conscience went, as if he were there, as if he were always watching her, as if he were judging her from every corner of her house, of her room, when she took pressed flowers from between her books to smell the scent of her mistakes.

But he was just Baek Ah's long-time friend. He was just a boy who struggled with fiction and couldn't see the meaning of it all; a boy who flourished in rational lines of thought, whose practical numbers and angles amazed her. It really amazed her when someone was talented in all the ways she wasn't, like Baek Ah's ease to make every sound into an engaging song, or Mr. Choi's engaging story-telling that sent her back into time, into the homes of kings and courtesans alike. Wang So seemed to be all sharp handwriting and eyes. Enigmatic eyes that seemed to contain a new unknown emotion every day. Did her spacing out amuse him? Did her lessons bore him? Did her slow resolution of his problems annoy him?

" _Can I kiss you?"_

He asked it in a low voice beside her when she was struggling with a formula. One of his hands was gripping the bench in the space between them, and he seemed to be closer than he had ever been. Hae Soo's thoughts, always confused between her tasks at hand and reminiscences that insisted on never going away, drew a blank. She was aware that they had spent a lot of time in each other's spaces, that she had leaned over his arm that day, that he had spoken over her shoulder, behind her, some time in the past she couldn't seem to remember when, his bangs softly touching her cheek. Had she given off a wrong signal somewhere? Had he planned to hit on her from the very beginning?

"That doesn't sound like him," Baek Ah had said. But on that day, with the sun shining mischievously in his eyes, and the playful smirk inviting her to look at his lips, Soo could only ungracefully slide away from and off the bench, successfully hitting the ground, then gathering her things and running away.

Her meticulous teacher tone in which she taught him, her straight poise, the perfect position of her glasses on her nose, were all gone the following day. She was hell-bent on lecturing him, on telling him to get lost, on saying a dozen different curses, had practiced for a good chunk of her evening for it, but he only greeted her with a lazy wave, a slight tilt of the head, and the words,

" _So what are we studying today, Hae Soo?"_

So interested, so focused. He regarded her with a hand on his cheek, and she couldn't read his eyes, she really couldn't, she just knew that they robbed her of her composure, and two can play this game, Wang So, so she tried, she really tried to be a good student and speak only of the beautiful words she so loved, to focus on the subjected she mastered. But each passing day brought a question to her mind, a new mystery of Wang So, why did look at her the way he did, was he truly a nice person, why did his quiet lectures work for her, why did he want to kiss her?

The pressed flowers remained shut inside a book in the top shelf she couldn't reach.

 _Tomorrow. Tomorrow will make more sense._

Her grades started to improve.


	3. Three

_My vision cleared with every step. My role, my future, aligning in a clear line before me. And despite the dirt in my clothes, the pain and the wounds, wounds unseen but still very deep, a weight that had been sitting on my heart seemed to evaporate in the spring air, in every petal that touched me, that showered me, and the only weight that remained was the gentle one I carried on my back._

 _And there was you, the pink on your cheeks, the softness of your voice. You, looking at me but seeing through me._

 _Spring birthed you inside of me that day; a bud stubbornly longing to bloom._

 _And I let you._

* * *

"The competition will take place in a couple weeks' time. All those interested should seek me after the last bell rings. May the best storyteller win."

Hae Soo's feet dance in the air under her desk in excitement after Mr. Choi turns to the blackboard to start the lesson of the day. From the seat in front of her, Baek Ah gives her a discreet thumbs-up that Soo returns. Her attention is mildly caught by the swirling wind outside that rattles the tree branches, a sound reminiscent of the faraway sea. A writing competition. She'll be free to create, to reference her favorite motifs, to honor her favorite stories, and above all, maybe create something new, something of her own. Her mind travels at the speed of the autumn breeze, of the things that she could write about. Soo never thought of herself as a writer, as a creator, but she lets herself go with the flow, see where it all could lead. The fallen leaves blow far and away, far and away, and Soo has to catch herself, to settle down back in Mr. Choi's class when he begins to speak. The swirling sea of autumn serves perfectly as background for his voice.

She walks out of the school building after signing up for the competition with her phone in hand, considering dropping that day's lessons with Wang So entirely in favor of brainstorming with ideas, maybe a little poetry-writing even. She sends him a message without thinking too much of it, and feels surprisingly anxious for his reply. Would he feel mad at her for ditching her tutoring? Wang So never seemed mad or even feeling any specially strong emotion in any of their meetings, but what did she know? What guarantee did she have that he wouldn't have an entirely unexpected reaction?

She puts her phone away, waiting for the sign to turn green. The usual crowd gathers around her on the sidewalk, each one of them a stranger, each one of them minding their own business, students thinking about their upcoming exams, children eager to get home, working adults sent on errands or wishing they were, still struggling to find their own place in such a big city.

Soo picks her phone up again when the sign sings go, the message alert easily recognizable above all the noise. _No problem_ , he says, and she would feel silly for all of her conjectures if her excitement didn't easily triumph her confused feelings for Wang So. She hops across the street, almost sending the boy a new message, almost telling him when their next meeting would be, maybe they could do some writing on their own, maybe he could practice with her, maybe he would tell her if she's good enough to win, but Hae Soo looks up instinctively as to not bump into anyone and she sees him.

Her feet touch the ground in one final landing. The city is no longer an open space where her thoughts roam freely, her palms open wide as if touching an infinite wheat field that grows towards the endless blue sky. The city is actually gray with a gray sky, and although it is still so big, although it is almost as infinite, she sees Hwangbo Wook in the crowd, her gaze meeting his as though they were opposite magnets that couldn't help but be drawn together.

Autumn is so much colder that afternoon that it steals the smile out of her face. Yes, she could blame the wind, she could hide behind the red of her scarf. She could do so many things but she stays there, rooted to the ground, and when Hwangbo Wook bows in acknowledgment, clad in pristine white clothes fit for a college student, Soo bows too. She bows, her eyes lingering on the shoes passing her by, on her shadow that refuses to move, and when she dares look up again, he's gone. Like a ghost. _Déjà vu._

Hae Soo drags herself forward. One step after the other after the next. They begin as a strain to her body but something burns inside of her and her feet can only respond in movement, faster, and faster, and faster. She bumps into people and it's only good that they're people because if they were an immovable object she'd be lost, she'd be more hurt than her heart, and that would be a kindness, perhaps. Something stronger than the self-pity.

She stops as quick as she began, letting herself sit, fall, at the top of a flight of stone steps, her side leaning against the cold railing. Her body doubles forward, her face hidden in the space between her knees, and she cries. For the first time, she lets herself cry, her shoulders shaking with hiccups. Not for heartbreak but out of shame, for feeling all of the things she thought she had locked away, tossed away, when she really hadn't. Just like the flowers that had once lost their smell but still remained as the outline of what they once were, so did her feelings, the echoes of his touches on her skin. She cries as an exorcism ritual; she cries because she doesn't know what else to do.

The cold of the afternoon slowly fades away, carrying her outburst. She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hands and that's when she notices the presence beside her, blocking her from sound and view and wind. Wang So looks at her out the corner of his eye but quickly looks forward again when he realizes she's looking at him. He seems interested on something on his phone but he's so obviously distracted that Soo groans.

 _Why here? Why now?_

She hits her head lightly against the railing, wanting nothing more than to just stand up and walk away and... What's keeping her, really? What did she owe him? She pulls her scarf up to cover her mouth and she's doing the mental route home, walking down the steps slowly, when he speaks.

"We're near the park. I was walking home but then I got tired."

Soo blinks. She hadn't realized she had walked closer to the park and neither did she think Wang So would still be there on the days they had nothing scheduled.

"We can resume next week," he says, picking himself up, never once looking at her. She almost lets him walk away.

"That's... I was planning on meeting tomorrow."

He halts, halfway down the stairs, and cool eyes meet red ones.

"If you want to. I just needed a break to do some... thinking. For a writing competition," she adds.

Wang So raises his eyebrows, his hands in his pockets. Soo should be moving, but she's not.

"Maybe you could practice with me," she continues. A lot of thoughts just tumbling out of her, down every step, towards him. Desperate attempts to deflect or an instinctive attempt at feeling better; she can't choose which one she's going for.

"I could. But don't be disappointed if I'm not good at it."

"Hey, you're my student, you can at least try, you rascal."

She picks up a nearby pebble and throws it at him but she misses by a long margin. Wang So only chuckles, smiles up at her, and walks away, the sound of his shoes never once making a sound. He seems to appear in her life when she least expects, only to disappear just as she's getting used to him. She touches her chest where not a single restrained sob yet remains and picks herself up, making her own way home. Soo avoids contact with everyone on the way, just moving aside, moving forward. One foot after the other after the next. Slowly, her scarf trailing behind her.

Soo doesn't brainstorm that night; she barely wants to think. She eats a flavorless dinner and then lies in bed with a drama in the background, keeping her eyes open until she can't anymore. In the sentient darkness between reality and her dreams, the comfort and warmth of her blankets makes her feel a lot like she's not alone. Her secret is finally shared. Every pent-up feeling jumps up and down the stone steps like misbehaved children, her red scarf a rope they hold on to, a rope wrapped around a Hae Soo surrounded by dead flowers. But the unseen sun is warm and she smiles despite herself. She wakes up from her dream drained by her own emotions, but gets up to a brand new day.

Feeling sad is so tiring. Soo wants to feel differently, to think different things, so she gets up. Puts on discreet make-up that her school might not scold her for, adjusts her ribbon neatly, braids her hair in a simple side-braid. She makes neat annotations for every class, even neat numbers So would be able to read perfectly, and tries to shed the old Soo like an old skin. Maybe she'll be forgotten in the wind on the way to the park. It's not easy, but she tries, to the best of her abilities, without straining herself. Little steps. Deep breaths. And the park, waiting for her with arms wide open.

Wang So places two hairclips on her notebook and when she looks up at him, he's doing his very best attempt of nonchalant with a faint blush on his cheeks.

"Your hair keeps falling on your face with the wind. Of course you picked today of all days to tie your hair back but whatever."

Soo picks up the hairclips; a single white flower adorns them and it shines faintly like a pearl. She places them on either side of her hair, by her temples, and without a mirror, she only raises her eyebrows at him for his opinion. So gives her his lopsided smile — this one looks a little happy — before focusing on his own work again.

"You know I'm not going easy on your composition, right?"

Wang So hits his head against his notebook and Soo can't help but laugh.


	4. Four

_I don't believe in Fate; threads connecting us together, pulling gently but surely, bit by bit, until our lives are intertwined. If there is a thread, then there is a cat playing with it like it's yarn. It gets tangled in pointy corners, falls down a flight of stairs, and it rolls and rolls downwards until the cat is satisfied, and then you need patience to pull it back together into a resemblance of order, into something that makes sense._

 _What did I have to offer you? My thread had gotten lost, out of sight, and I was still pulling, pulling. I wanted to be whole, I wanted to be complete, so that these hands of mine could produce something worthwhile, something for you. A red scarf to protect you from the wind._

 _The thread is in my hands and I want to wrap it around you._

* * *

There are so many ways to distract one's mind. Soo likes losing herself in different worlds the best, but it could only help so much with her own creativity. She likes watching dramas and movies, but at the time, she avoids them; there are always so many romantic undertones or overtones or anything and the visuals... She wants something else.

So she runs.

She wasn't made to break scores or compete or make anyone proud. But she uses the tracking team's field and she runs and her mind runs with her — unimpeded, free, full of a brightness that can be only translated in potential, in force and in a raw desire to be. She hopes it's the kind of thing that never fails to cheer her up, that she'll always have, because nothing else makes things seem so small. Only the space ahead of her is visible, it's all wide and promising. The competition is but a week away and she feels confident that something good is going to happen.

She agrees to meet So at the library, eager to pick up some new material for their classes but not quite as excited about the prospect of So choosing even more head-spinning problems for her. She can't run all the way there without bothering people so she only tries to keep a good pace, holding her school bag close to her body, smiling at the ever-growing chilly wind on her cheeks.

It's only when she comes near the intersection where she last saw Wook that she starts growing nervous. Lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice, Hae Soo, but people weren't lightning, were they? She looks left and right for a trace of him, a sign, something that could tell her which way to go in order to successfully avoid him. When the sign turns green, Hae Soo allows herself to run, ready to take chance into her hands and fight down the wild beating of her heart.

She doesn't make it to the other side in one piece. Her foot is ready to step onto the sidewalk but it takes a misstep on the curb, her ankle twisting, causing her to fall and potentially bruise her bottom on the right side. Soo winces and holds her ankle, feeling the skin growing hot through the fabric of her sock. She looks around but no one is paying her any mind, no one knows or wants to know her, they just keep walking towards their own destination. She's considering just limping home when she hears a bicycle stop in front of her and a voice that says,

"What are you doing on the ground, Hae Soo?"

She can't remember seeing him with a bike before, but there is Wang So, looking down at her like she's created a new brand of amusement.

"I can assure you I'm not here for the view," she retorts automatically and So chuckles before offering his hand. She takes it and almost causes him to fall when she stumbles into him; her ankle definitely hurts more than she had anticipated. "I twisted my ankle," she says.

"I can see that," he remarks. Her hands hold on to his forearms for balance and although she has to give herself a mental reminder that it's no big deal, Wang So seems completely unaffected. "Want me to give you a ride home?"

"But we had agreed on going to the library."

"I doubt you can even enter, how are you going to climb up the entrance steps?"

"One at a time!"

An exasperated sigh.

"You're hurt, Hae Soo."

"It'll be fine if I just apply some pain relief patches, it's no big deal. Please?"

She uses the big smile and fluttering eyes that always get her mother to bend to her will. It's apparently generally effective as Wang So just sighs again and motions with his head to the back of his bike. Soo looks around briefly before climbing behind him and holding onto his jacket. When Wang So starts pedaling, Soo feels safer with her arms around him instead, at the same time trying to keep her feet away from the wheel.

So stops next to a pharmacy and asks her to wait, then, after he comes out, he wheels her away until they're in a wider area, not blocking anyone's way. He asks her to sit down on a bench and kneels before her, holding gently onto her right foot, the one she's been keeping in mid-air. Soo bites her lip as he undoes her shoelaces, and lets out a little groan when he removes her sock.

Wang So stares at her red, swollen ankle before looking up at her.

"Are you sure you don't want me to take you to a clinic or something?"

"It's not broken..."

"You should go home then. Your parents are going to be worried when they see you."

Soo touches her chin on her shoulder, the tip of her left foot scraping gently across the sidewalk tiles.

"I don't want to go home yet."

All her energy seemed to run out when she got home. The purple walls of her bedroom seemed to transport her to a different time, a space where she felt melancholy and sleepy. The words kept getting stuck on the lead of her mechanical pencil.

So takes the pain relief patches he bought, and with her foot resting on his thigh, he places not one, but two to circle her ankle entirely. He doesn't seem awkward at all and Soo's mind wanders. Maybe he has siblings and he's used taking care of them, or maybe he had dated a clumsy girl before. She could have expected the boy who asked for her kiss to take advantage of her in that situation, to touch her leg higher than was necessary, to give her suggestive looks, but he's careful, always trying to touch her foot where it doesn't hurt, putting her shoe back on slowly like a prince hoping it'll fit, tying the laces loosely, only so it doesn't fall off. He's so focused on her injury that he doesn't look at her until he's done, and Soo doesn't know what expression she's wearing but Wang So gives only a smiles in return, the caring smile her mother uses to tell her that it's going to be okay.

He takes both her hands to help her up, guiding her back to his bike.

"To the library, then."

He doesn't hop onto the bike to ride them there. He keeps his hands on the handlebar and he walks, Soo's feet hanging comfortably in the air, her hair blowing with the wind. She keeps her eyes on his back and her reservations about him seem to come out of her with every exhale. She doesn't understand him any more than she did two weeks prior, but his back gives her a sense of security, of trust, and really, she should have expected as much from a friend of Baek Ah's, but Soo didn't make friends as easily as everyone thought, talking the afternoon away didn't mean the same as showing the face she wears when she feels at her worst. So, however, hadn't turned his back when he saw that face; on the contrary, Soo could still feel his warmth under her cheek, the same warmth that had radiated from him when he sat next to her, sharing her tears and helping to hide them from the rest of the world.

What kind of friend is Wang So? She thinks she knows it a little better now.

He parks his bike next to the entrance stairs and helps Soo settle on the steps.

"What books do you want?"

She writes the titles on a notepad, rips the small pink sheet and gives it to him. He tells her he won't take long, his feet slowly disappearing from her view, up, up the steps she couldn't climb. Her gaze lingers on the entrance and in her mind's eye she can see him wandering through the corridors, his fingers tracing the spine of books she likes or wants to read, his eyes looking back at the note and then up again, lighting up in the way they do when he understands something. She can even picture his nose wrinkling at some of the titles like he does when she suggests a theme he isn't particularly fond of. But he likes historical settings and she had been trying to think of a book he'd like for some time. Not something to study but just to enjoy, and nothing really makes Soo as giddy as choosing books others might like, books that they could discuss excitedly over a sweet cup of tea. She watches the horizon that slowly darkens, feeling happier than she had been before she had fallen.

Wang So climbs the steps down two at a time, his bag looking considerably heavier. He helps Soo to her feet and settles her on the bike again, and she offers to carry both of their bags all the way to her home. She hugs So's bag close to her chest, her eyes still trained on him as he wheels the bike through all the streets she knows by heart.

"Do you have siblings?" She asks.

"Yes, I have a baby brother."

"What's his name? How old is he?"

"Jung, he's four."

"Do you help look after him?"

"Yes, whenever father is busy."

"What about your mom?"

"She passed away early this year."

Soo smile fades away and the cold she feels has nothing to do with the falling dusk. She holds his bag closer, her thoughts inevitably going back to her own mother, incapable of thinking of a world without her in it. There's a ringing in her ear as she wonders what to say next, what's appropriate, condolences? A change in subject? _Are you okay?_

"...out you?"

Soo's head snaps back in his direction. He's still walking, but he's looking over his shoulder at her.

"Huh?"

"Do you have any siblings?"

"Ah, no." She gives him a restrained smile he cannot see. "I'm a single child."

"Do you like it? Being a single child?"

"Do you like being an older brother?"

He turns to her again, only slightly, only for a brief moment, and the answers pass between them in an invisible thread that carries the acceptance for an immutable situation, but also more than resignation. The immeasurable love for a mother that could bear no more children, that falls easily under the weather, and the love for a brother that no longer has a mother, that needs a warm chest to fall asleep against, that needs a kind hand to tend to his wounds when she falls. Soo has the mother she treasures and who loves her even when she can't love herself, and she knows the kindness in his hands so she understands. Has she even done enough so that he can understand her too?

On her porch, he takes his bag away from her and helps her climb the few steps to her door. He doesn't make her uncomfortable even with his arm across her back, with his face next to her. She's in too much pain to care, too grateful to mind. With her hand on the doorknob, she waits until he hands her all the books she asked for, and marvels at the surprise in his eyes when she says the last one is for him.

"Is your mom really home or are you being stubborn again?" He asks and Soo takes notice of their height difference for the first time. When he looks down at her, his bangs draw charming shadows on his face in the dusk light, his eyes reflecting the yellow glint of the streetlights.

"My mom is home but I also think you should get home to your little brother."

He tilts his head slightly to the side and he disarms her for the second time with the hopeful blinking of his eyes, and the flirtatious distance that he closes between them, close to her lips.

"Did you get tired of me, Hae Soo?"

She tries to push his face away from hers, touching his forehead, but he backs away on his own and takes hold on her wrist. She doesn't dare to pull it free, in fear of losing her balance, and he doesn't try to trap her. He just holds onto her, like he doesn't want to go.

Soo is very aware of her heartbeats.

"I'll see you after your competition," he says, letting go, walking away, and Soo, who had missed the thought that they wouldn't be seeing each other until she recovered, until the competition was over, already misses his company in ways.

"I hope you like the book!" She calls at his retreating back and her response is a wave that seems to carry all the wordless things that made him Wang So, a magnetic warmth that made her feel more and more at ease around him.

"Soo, why are you so late?"

She limps inside to greet her mother, the books in her arm ready to be her companions, her inspirations, and to give a brand new color to a room that had, until then, only carried the colors of her regret.


	5. Five

_I believe in Fate. And in wishes upon stars and in astrological signs and in honest, good will. That's why that summer was so exhausting. All the things that made me happy would make me sad; all the things I believed in seemed like childish stories you put away on your shelf after you become a proper woman, after the colors in your clothes turn somber and the heels in your shoes become higher. Red riding hood must eat the wolf and throw the basket full of sweets away._

 _But in the twilight of your company..._

 _Can you see?_

 _The colors are mine again. As plentiful as the stars in the sky._

* * *

She didn't do great, she's certain of it. Over the course of the week, inspiration turned into overthinking turned into weariness turned into boredom after she read her books again and again and again, with no one to talk to, no one to retort and question. Soo went to bed on Sunday with an ankle that didn't hurt as much anymore and a blurred outline of what once could have been a great story. Or it was never meant to be. Every word that she writes feels lifeless without a voice to call her own, marching onwards only to die a sad death at the end of her paragraph. She turned in her best efforts to Mr. Choi's hands and she walked away, one step at a time, down all the stairs, and outside the gates. The afternoon breeze fills her lungs with relief.

Hae Soo is sure there is still a path for her to take. If the pen wasn't her sword, then her voice surely could be. If she couldn't be inspired, maybe she could inspire. Mr. Choi had winked at her when their eyes met, like he knew a secret she didn't yet uncover. She's getting there. In the autumn whose colors slowly fade away into the bright white of winter, hugging her jacket close to herself, Soo thinks of the future and of what she wants to do, her feet slowly taking the streets that she had missed.

They hadn't agreed on anything, no messages had been sent — Soo hadn't really exchanged messages with anyone but her mother in a long time —, but still she goes to the park, and still he's there, like he was supposed to be. He's sitting on the table instead of the bench, looking down at the city. Soo hadn't stopped to appreciate it before; the higher ground of the park they called their own and the view from where they sat, an entire world of tiny, colorful houses and shops and cars beyond their outstretched hands.

"How did it go?" Wang So asks, his eyes still on the view. She pulls herself up on the table to sit beside him.

"It went."

He turns to her with an eyebrow raised.

"And?"

"We'll see." Soo shrugs. "There'll be other competitions. We're still in our second year."

He nods because it's true and because there really isn't much else to be done about what has passed. Soo swings her feet back and forth, white socks in white sneakers, before she asks,

"What do you want to do today?"

Wang So leans back on his hands, the wind messing up his bangs. Soo has the hairclips he gave her and no hair in her eyes.

"Let's watch a movie."

Soo nods, picking up her phone to send her mother a message about arriving late and going out with a friend. So takes her hands and helps her down and she's not sure if it's because he still thinks she's injured or if he wanted to touch her. On the way to the mall with the closest movie theater, they don't hold hands, but their steps match in pace and stride, even if he's taller and hadn't suffered an ankle injury.

She pays for her ticket and he buys her popcorn. She lets him choose, ready to let her mind wander through any landscape, any plot or relationship, just ready to watch something and forget about the things that usually hold her back. He chooses a foreign film, a historical piece, and Soo ends up loving it. She's sure that even if the story slips from her mind, she's going to remember the green of the bamboo forest where the protagonists hide, the skill with which the actors dance and fight at the same time, and tender touching of lips in a love that lasts so briefly. Soo takes hold of his arm when they walk to the food court afterwards, excitedly asking him if he liked all the twists and turns, how it seemed like very season came to pass before the movie was over, such a peach spring and the last winter of loss. So nods and speaks of his favorite scenes, of the balance between action and romance, and Soo nods, slurping her milkshake, stealing fries off his tray.

It's dark by the time they start walking home, and maybe they walk closer together to keep the cold away. Soo looks at her feet that catch the shadows of the night and the streetlights that keep them away.

"I had my heart broken in spring," she starts, a beginning with no introduction or prelude. She starts, her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket. "It wasn't even a relationship, it was just..."

She kicks a pebble out of her way. The yellow lights seem to illuminate her thoughts.

"He messaged me poetry on the first day he got my number. Said it reminded him of me, because of my name." She scoffs. "He's the older brother of one of my classmates and he would wait for her at the gate after class... He said he liked my hair and that I was pretty. He said it a lot."

Soo plays with the ends of her scarf, holding the soft wool tightly in her hands and then letting go.

"He was older than me and I wasn't under any illusion... But I had just entered high school and no boy had ever paid so much attention to me before. I took selfies, perfected them, sent them all. I wanted to look cute for him. He would send some as well, taken from too close, and I felt... reciprocated."

Soo holds her hands together behind her back, her chest pointed forward, an easy target for blows.

"When spring came, he told me he was moving in with his girlfriend and that was it. He didn't say it, but he informed me because we had to stop. I didn't initiate anything, but I had to stop... I was a toy he no longer needed. And so he never appeared or talked to me again."

She crosses her arms in front of her chest, protecting it again.

"I had never felt so used... So foolish. He gave me flowers and told me sweet things and I fell for it all. And the worst is that I've been trying to get rid of every memory I had of him but he insists on appearing."

She laughs, a bitter, uncharacteristic laugh.

"Eventually I deleted every message and threw every gift away, but I still keep the poem and the flowers... Because I really liked them. And if I pretended it never happened, maybe it'd be worse, I'd be just a coward little girl who was played with by an older man."

Silence settles between them, their footsteps matching every second. Soo's house is near and she keeps on walking.

"Have you ever wanted to let go of a part of yourself?" She asks and looks up at him. His eyes are still looking forward, almost in an unfocused manner. Soo hooks her arm with his, so their pace still match, so they can keep walking the evening away.

"When my mother died at the end of last year, I think I did lose something." His gaze is still focused forward and Soo trusts him with their path, she can't look away from his profile. "I didn't want to eat, I didn't want to see anyone... My father took a leave of absence from work and he still hasn't returned. Only Jung kept asking for her, kept crying, and father had to make all our meals and hold him until he fell asleep. I didn't do anything, I just let the days pass by. The holidays, Lunar New Year, relatives that came to check on us... Everything passed like a film on fast-forward. Until I met you in spring."

Soo halts, her arm falling from his. They both turn to face each other, two silhouettes standing under the spotlight.

"I didn't meet you in spring."

Wang So smiles like he recalls a fond memory.

"We did. I knew you didn't remember. I was on my bike and I fell," he says, pointing to the sidewalk like it had just happened, like it's happening right at that instant. "I was carrying Jung and he started crying on the ground. I panicked because it was my fault, I was the one not paying attention to where I was going and I hurt my brother. I tried to find his injury but he just cried harder, he was so red and I was almost crying myself when you come over."

She widens her eyes because she can see it. The distressed teenager, the crying child, and the tree that dropped flowers all over the two of them.

"I asked you if you were okay, if you were hurt."

He smiles and nods.

"And I demanded you help my little brother."

"I told you to run to a clinic that was a few blocks away."

"And I ran but I forgot my—"

"You forgot your bike so I ran after you, wheeling the bike because I can't ride it."

Soo unwraps her scarf from around her neck because she suddenly feels too warm, too self-conscious. Her feet start moving and Wang So walks beside her, still continuing his tale of spring.

"I've been thinking about you ever since that day. You didn't know me but you rushed in to help and disappeared without even saying your name. I realized then... I realized that I couldn't just live carelessly because there were people counting on me. Jung needed me. My father, who was slowly coming apart, needed me. And you—"

Soo looks at him and he's smiling the fondest he's ever done.

"I wanted to repay you. I wanted to meet you again and return the kindness you gave me."

Soo stares at her feet. She can't smile then; kindness is not a currency and she had never given as much significance to the incident as he seems to.

"So you asked for the tutoring lessons?"

So's shadow shakes its head.

"I asked for Baek Ah for the tutoring lessons because I wanted to improve my grades. I wanted to do well in school so I could have better prospects for the future. I could go to college or not, I haven't decided what's best for the family it yet."

"So it just happened to be me."

"It just happened to be you."

Soo halts and So takes a couple of steps before he realizes and stops to look at her. They had passed her front door many times, but kept drawing a circle around the block.

"The kiss?"

"I realized something was holding you back," he says, walking closer to her. "So I wanted to take your mind off of it. I wanted... I want to make you happier, Soo. Because I felt a little happier after the day I met you."

Soo walks in silence. Another corner and they're in front of her door again, and she sits on the front steps. So doesn't sit beside her; there's no space and he seems to be waiting for her reply.

"I had nothing to do with you feeling better that day," she says, her eyes fixed on her hands resting on her knees.

"Well, not... entirely, but—"

"What if I had walked away? When you asked to kiss me?" She looks up in time to see the light fading away from him. "What would you have done?" _After you lost your mother, what if I had left you too?_

Her feet come close together, her body turning inward in contemplation.

"Do you know how I felt that day?" She rests her arms on her knees, her voice muffled by the cloth of her jacket and the memories. "I was scared. Scared of being used and thrown away again."

"I... I'm sorry, Soo."

Soo shakes her head, no edge in her words or movements, but So's hand seem full of disquiet feelings, opening and closing, raising in her direction before dropping again. She looks at him and he seems lost, but she's held back every single one of her feelings and for so long, she thinks she owes it to him.

"I believe you had good intentions, So, but if you're really thinking of someone other than yourself, you need more than intention." _Or you could get hurt. People will hurt you._

She stands up and So looks smaller than he did the last time she compared their heights.

"Thank you for today."

Hae Soo bows and enters her home, closing every door behind her with a soft click, climbing all the stairs to her room without thinking about them, just walking and walking until she's lying on her bed and staring at her ceiling. The food she had eaten that day get stuck in her middle, unpleasant.

Over the course of the week, Mr. Choi asks her to help him with chores, making copies of texts, assigning her for cleaning duty. He tells her she has an unparalleled love for the written words and she's happy, even if there's no skip in her step. She goes straight home after all her assignments are done, never once stopping by the park, never once thinking that he might be waiting for her. She does think. She thinks about his eyes up close, making her blush, and her guard around him ever since that day. Wook had been so full of flowery words, had been made of deliberate touches, a hand that pushed her hair back and brushed against her neck, a hand that subtly touched her elbow, but So... So mostly let her talk. She thinks of how he never asked to kiss her again. How he seemed pleased after she finished her ramblings. She plays scenes over and over, from their stiff introduction to her face against his back and the wind surrounding them as he rode towards the pharmacy. He was an arrow that aimed straight to her heart while leaving his own bare and vulnerable.

"Are you okay?" Baek Ah asks and she says yes but in reality she misses him. She feels like she only accumulates things she wants to tell him in the period they spend apart.

It's a week later when she manages to enter the park, full of words in her chest, missing the short additions he added to her monologues, the laid-back way with which he watched her take his fries, drawing movie scenes in the air with his fingers.

Wang So is nowhere to be seen.


	6. Kiss Me

_Time is such a fickle thing, don't you think? Good moments seem to pass by so fast, but when they turn sour in our mouths, remembering them feels like recollecting years upon years. The more I long to be happy again, the more time seems to stand still, to hold itself back, only to unravel at top speed when I'm content, when I'm pouring my heart out._

 _I'm so different than I was a year ago and so different still than I was before that. Like the seasons that pass, flowers that bloom and wither and die, falling so others can be born in their place._

 _We mourn the things we lost, but there's still so much we look forward to, isn't there? So much we want to see, so much we want to be._

 _I want to be with you. After the seasons pass and spring comes again, I want to be with you._

 _And the spring after that._

 _And the one after that, too._

* * *

It's winter when they meet again. There's winter in her, a lighter color in her hair, like snow that got caught in the strands and never left. He stares at her with the book she chose for him such a long time ago in his hands, eyes widening as she taps the tips of her shoes on the library floor, shaking off the dirt, collecting herself and her heart before looking back at him. They walk through the corridors of the library together, almost as if they had agreed to be there, as if they had agreed to stick together. She stands on her tiptoes trying to pick a book she was sure she could reach but he's behind her, covering her, a hand on her shoulder and the other on her book. He gives it to her, along with a smile, and all the weeks without him are worth it for the reunion. His steps match her pace, a song picking up where it left off, and she braves the city with him for the first time in that new year.

"Are you still mad at me?" He asks, gazing at the details of the houses they pass by, as if the question doesn't matter. Soo smiles to herself.

"I wasn't mad at you, So."

He nods in agreement. He won't look her in the eye so she thinks he might not agree, really.

"Where have you been?" She asks, her short, blonde hair whipping around when she turns her head to him.

"My father went back to work so I had to look after Jung. He's finally drawing again…" He looks ahead, beyond the two of them. "A neighbor is babysitting Jung today so I could go out for a bit."

Soo hums.

"You?" He asks in turn.

"I had to help Mr. Choi with a few things so I guess we sort of missed each other."

He finally meets her gaze and she hopes he caught all of the meanings of the word; she had taught him well, so she remains optimistic.

They walk to their park and sit on the table like the youth they are, their feet lying next to each other and the city lights capturing their attention in the distance.

"I'm sorry," says Wang So, leaning back on his hands like he did on the day of their first date. "I meant to message you but…" Soo smiles. She did teach him well. But in her contradictory heart, she wishes he had messaged her.

"I've already forgiven you."

She sighs to the landscape, her breath condensing in clouds in front of her.

"You know, what really made me happy wasn't that failed plan of yours, but everything after that. Spending time with you. I wasn't mad at you, So, I was... Upset. Because I like you, and I want you to do better." She looks at him, at his wide eyes. "Does that make sense?"

"You like me?"

Soo snorts, touching the tip of her shoes together, shaking her head at the obvious ways our minds worked sometimes.

"You do have a way of making things make sense, Soo."

Her smile widens, and she thinks her cheeks are already starting to hurt. So changes his position beside her and their hands lie side by side, holding the edge of the table. Soo's gaze lingers at the space between them.

"Why couldn't you break the ice like a normal person?" She asks, narrowing her eyes playfully. "'Hi, my name is Wang So, I'm Baek Ah's best friend and it's a pleasure to meet you.'"

"Okay, first of all? I sound nothing like that," he says, tapping her on the forehead, laughter permeating his every word. "Second of all, you're not as easy to approach as you think you are."

"Neither are you!" Her shoulder pushes against his arm. "You barely looked at me that day! It was like you were taking a nap with your eyes open."

"You realize you were reading off the book and not being particularly interesting yourself, right?"

"I resent that."

Their shoulders shake with laughter, touching in that winter afternoon, and the space between them disappears, melts away.

"I wanted to befriend you," he starts, looking away, seeing that day before his eyes. "But I'm not that good at it. And you were so pretty with the blush on your cheeks and the glasses that I was nervous. I hadn't felt that way around a girl before."

Wang So leans forward, towards the city, but his head is turned to her. Seeing his eyes look at her from below, shining with a light she hadn't seen in so long, makes him all the more endearing.

"I really did want to kiss you then. But I wouldn't do it if you didn't want me to."

Soo laughs because his admission is much closer to what she had expected from him the first time. She half wants to hit him on the forehead with her books and half wants to—

"By the way," she says, "I'm buying that book for you so you'll stop holding the poor thing captive."

He actually looks offended.

"I told the librarian that I was writing a paper on it and she let me borrow it again. It's perfectly fine."

Soo touches his arm and shakes him lightly, excitement lighting up her eyes.

"I'll buy it for you and then you'll be able to make your own highlights and write little notes in the margins."

She giggles and he lets out a fake gasp.

"Who writes in the margins of literature books? You're a monster, Hae Soo."

She pushes him and runs away, the invitation easily accepted. They circle the table a few times, Soo making little jumps, ducking, twirling away from his grasp, but she's not as fast and his strides are too long, and eventually he picks her up from behind, his arms circling around her middle and trapping her arms, Soo letting out a small yelp when her feet levitate from the ground.

"I yield!" She calls between giggles and short breaths, his laughter sounding close to her ear, his warm breath tickling her neck, and when he puts her down, she doesn't think twice before twirling around and pecking him on the lips.

She only notices it's snowing when she looks up at his reaction. Wang So freezes, blinks a few times, and proceeds to cover his face, hide his eyes from view. Soo holds on to his forearms and tries to pull them down, and her cheeks definitely hurt by then, from all the genuine happiness she feels.

"What? What?" She asks him.

"I didn't think you'd do that," he confesses. Soo pulls on his arms until he lets his hands fall, taking perfect advantage of his embarrassment and stature to sneak her arms around his middle and rest her cheek against his chest. The frantic beating of his heart close to her ear, his arms that fall around her, the hand that touches her hair and the hairpin that she still uses to remember him by, they all envelop her, allow her to fall into the presence of Wang So, the dear friend she had missed, the boy she was guiding inside her mind, inside her heart. Trust was a flower that had fallen, died away, only for a new one to be born in its place.

"Don't disappear again," she whispers against his jacket. "I'll text you."

"Okay," is his answer. Soo pulls away to look at him, to feel his hands pet her hair back into place, to revel in his smile and the redness on his cheeks that radiated warmth in their proximity.

"Do you like it?" She asks him when he can't take his hands away from her hair and he nods, laughs an embarrassed laughter, unsure of what to do with himself.

Hae Soo is just a high school student who once liked someone she shouldn't have, and although she wasn't sure if she would ever like someone again, she discovers there are so many things for her to see, so many different kinds of people for her to know, so many different things a person can be. Baek Ah is honest opinions and meaningful words and a cocky kind of pride in his accomplishments. Mr. Choi is full of inspiring spirit and loud laughter at unexpected times. Her mother is elegance in simple gestures and the most welcoming of smiles, and even Wook had traits she marked down in her memory, signs she would look for in people to protect herself and those she loved. And Wang So... She learned attraction can happen at first glance, that he's as awkward as he's perceptive, that he still has many things to learn, and that he awakened in her the simple joy of being, and that his admiration for her and her ability to make him laugh only made her own confidence rise inside of her from the ashes of what she once was.

Learning is a never-ending experience, Mr. Choi taught her. When she tells Baek Ah after they return from winter break that she's dating Wang So and he promptly falls from his chair, she knows that she loves learning more than anything else in the world.

* * *

"Hae Soo," Hwangbo Yeon Hwa growls. "Your boyfriend is waiting for you by the front gate."

The force with which Yeon Hwa bumps her shoulder into Soo's is a wonder to her as she walks to the cited place, her high school diploma in hand, her feet unable to keep from hopping across the campus that she would no longer visit after that day.

"What did you say to Yeon Hwa?" She asks So with narrowed eyes, her triumphant smile just encouraging his smirk.

"I told her I was waiting for the prettiest girl in the school and told her to call you. Who was she anyway?"

"The prettiest girl in school."

Her laughter is so unstoppable, causing her to lean against the wall for support, that So almost has to carry her away.

She walks with her head raised high, one hand shielding her eyes from the golden sunrays that she loves, the other holding So's hand. He carries both of their diplomas, keeping his eyes trained ahead so his girlfriend doesn't bump into any tree or person.

"Do you think I'm going to be a good teacher?"

Wang So chuckles.

"I think you should focus on passing college first."

Soo nods.

"We're going to take the same train every day. Do you think we're going to see Baek Ah? I forgot to ask him about that."

"I do believe I have classes in the same building as him so I don't think _I_ will escape Baek Ah. Maybe I shouldn't have chosen Architecture."

She giggles, looking up at him and brushing cherry blossoms off his hair.

"And then I'll call you after my classes."

"I don't think I should answer personal phone calls at work."

She pokes his shoulder.

"Are you saying you're not going to take my calls?"

"I'm confident I can answer your calls and check out items at the convenience store at the same time."

Soo lets go of his hand, rushes in front of him and walks a few steps backwards, facing him, his feet touching the spaces left by hers.

"I can look after Jung sometimes while you study. It'll be fun, he likes me."

So stops and she stops too, leaning into his touch when he cups her cheek with his hand.

"Then you'll help me design a pretty house where we can all live in?"

Soo loves feeling his chuckles when she embraces him, and the spring sun that covers them in possibilities.

"Are you sure you're not going to get tired of me, Soo?"

She shakes her head, her darling hair following her movements in gentle waves. He still tucks her bangs behind her ear, still looks at her like he's looking at her for the first time, like his eyes might unveil the secret of his thoughts. Soo has seen that look many times and still she missed it in all the hours they spent away studying in different schools, in all the days he had his own chores to take care of. She can perfectly envision those eyes filled with sleep, greeting her first thing in the morning on the platform, before they board together and sit together and fall asleep against each other all the way to their brand new lives. She had learned there were silences as soothing and beautiful as the ones she spent with her books and her adventures. There's still so much they can see, on their own paths and the paths they connected.

"Wang So," Soo calls, under a cherry blossom tree, amongst all the people that passed them by. "Kiss me?"

She doesn't have to stand on her tiptoes; they both knew the distance by heart. Her hands reach as far as they can on his back, clutching the fabric of his blazer when he kisses her, a shiver running through her when his hand settles on the back of her neck. He kisses her like they're the only people on the sidewalk, slow but intimate, until they're out of breath, and then he kisses her again with a smile on his lips. Kissing her is his favorite pastime; he's kissed her playfully, tiredly, passionately, and it always makes her giggle afterward.

Maybe it's what happiness feels like, kissing him.

She's willing to learn.


End file.
